Morphometric and genetic variation of small dwarf honeybees Apis andreniformis Smith, 1858 in Thailand

Abstract

The small dwarf honey bee, Apis andreniformis, is a rare and patchily distributed Apis spp. and is one of the native Thai honey bees, yet little is known about its biodiversity. Thirty (27 Thai and 3 Malaysian) and 37 (32 Thai and 5 Malaysian) colonies of A. andreniformis were sampled for morphometric and genetic analysis, respectively. For morphometric analysis, 20 informative characters were used to determine the variation. After plotting the factor scores, A. andreniformis from across Thailand were found to belong to one group, a notion further supported by a cluster analysis generated dendrogram. However, clinal patterns in groups of bee morphometric characters were revealed by linear regression analysis. The body size of bees increases from South to North but decreases from West to East, although this may reflect altitude rather than longitude. Genetic variation was determined by sequence analysis of a 520 bp fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit b (cytb). DNA polymorphism among bees from the mainland of Thailand is lower than that from Phuket Island and Chiang Mai. Although two main different groups of bees were obtained from phylogenetic trees constructed by neighbor-joining and unweighted pair-group method using arithmetic averages programs, no clear geographic signal was present. Thus, while the minor group (B) contained all of the samples from the only island sampled (Phuket in the south), but not the southern mainland colonies, it also contained samples from the far northern inland region of Chiang Mai, other samples of which were firmly rooted in the major group (A).

Bee Diversity in Thailand and the Applications of Bee Products

“…Since A. andreniformis is a rare and patchily distributed species, very little work has been reported. For example, intraspecific variation of A. andreniformis was reported by Rattanawannee et al (2007). They sampled from 27 colonies (for morphometric analysis) and 32 colonies (for genetic analysis) of A. andreniformis throughout Thailand.…”

Analysis of the complete mitochondrial genomes of two dwarf honeybee species,Apis floreaandApis andreniformis(Insecta: Hymenoptera: Apidae), in Thailand

“…Analysis of the dwarf honeybee using RFLP of mitochondrial DNA and microsatellite DNA has shown that haplotype diversity of A. andreniformis was a quarter of that of A. florea, and also lower than that of other honeybee species (Takahashi et al 2008;Hepburn and Radloff 2011). The genetic variation of the mitochondrial DNA sequence in the red dwarf honeybee A. florea is lower than that of the sympatric honeybees Apis cerana and Apis dorsata (Rattanawannee et al 2007;Takahashi et al 2017). The haplotype numbers of the mitochondrial COI, and Cytb and 16S genes in A. andreniformis were less than those of the sympatric honeybee A. florea (Takahashi 2006).…”

Insects: The Disregarded Domestication Histories

“…The dwarf honey bees (A. florea and A. andreniformis) are small species from southern and southeastern Asia that make small open nests in trees and shrubs [75,77,78]. These species produce honey that is harvested and eaten by local human populations [77,79]. The giant honey bees (A. binghami, A. breviligula, A. dorsata, and A. laboriosa) are aggressive species inhabiting forest areas of South and Southeast Asia [80][81][82].…”